


the other one

by tenderthings



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Carver Hawke 2017, Gen, Hawke Family Feels, Purple Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 09:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12251685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderthings/pseuds/tenderthings
Summary: His sister will always reside in a place he can never touch.(in which i wrote 5 drabbles for carver hawke week.)





	1. farm boy.

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on my tumblr many, many moons ago for Carver Hawke 2017, though I only did five out of the seven prompts. I'm posting it here now because this is the last thing I wrote before I went on hiatus annnnnnd it's my way of blowing off the dust from this account...I guess?
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!

 

* * *

  

1.

 

He has never seen a city before.

He realizes this on a hot afternoon, the sun beating down on his back as he plowed and tended to his family’s meager field. Sweat pooled at his brow, dirt gathered beneath his fingers, and the day dragged on all the same but the thought ate at him throughout.

Father says he’s prone to “over-thinking things” but he can’t help it.

He has only ever known dirt and farming, dogs and running, magic and hiding. It’s not much. It’s not much _at all_. But a city—a city could be everything and more.

He could picture shapes and heights but very little else. Boxes atop boxes atop boxes, so high they clouded the sky, and the never ending bustle of people. And food—So much food, he’d never have to plow a stupid field ever again.

Sure, he supposes a city would be a lot dirtier and a lot louder but his sisters could easily hide under all that noise and muck. Father would find work as he always does, selling salves and what not, and mother would tend to the house as she always does.

Then come winter, he and Bethany would be eight. He’d finally be old enough to hold a sword of his own—and not one of those tourney swords his father once promised to buy him and promptly forgot but fine, hard steel like that of a knight’s.

It’s not a thing he likes to say aloud—his sisters don’t understand and his father never takes him seriously anyway—but one day, he’ll be a knight.

Or a soldier. Or a champion.

Anything, really, that gets him the finest blade in all of Ferelden with a suit of armor to match. He knows, however, that if he’s not careful, he’ll miss his chance.

He knows of boys and girls younger than him who’ve already gone off for templar training in Redcliffe. It had only been a week ago that a handful of village children from both Lothering and abroad were gathered in the Chantry hall to be blessed by the Revered Mother and given their ceremonial meals. He saw little of the boring bits but he stayed for the end. They were led and lifted one by one onto a cart by a templar he did not recognize but otherwise envied in his bright and silvery suit.

It was unlike the sets the templars stationed at Lothering wore. This one kept his armor in good condition, newly polished and everything.

Most of the children looked downright miserable, some even crying, but Carver only watched the tall, unknown templar with his mighty greatsword as he readied to leave.

The templar in question barely spared him a glance but Carver recoiled and hid behind one of the market stalls when he was caught staring. He felt oddly ashamed, a feeling so hard to swallow, it sometimes feels like his tongue has gone swollen as he thinks back to that moment. He’s not sure why but he kept the feeling to himself.

Done with the planting, he sets down the hoe and goes to the well, heaving up a bucket of water to soak himself with. The bone-biting rush calms him down but it also makes him wish for an easier way of doing things.

Less chores, more...everything else.

The children on the cart will be fed and clothed and taught things that his father doesn’t know. By winter, they’ll know how to fight.

By spring, they’ll have their own suit of armor.

By the end of the new year, they’ll be everything Carver is not.

He’s bigger than most boys; he knows his numbers and letters. He’ strong and sturdy, but he will always be one step behind everyone else.

Carver bites his tongue. Why is he like this?

He returns to his chores once he notices the lateness of the hour, frowning all the while. Indoors, his mother is making dinner and his father is teaching the girls something Carver doesn’t understand.

Any want for a life in the city seems stupid now. Things will never change.

 

 


	2. there is no going back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original/tumblr title: "the mother we share"
> 
> this one is meant to express how carver sees katrine (my hawke) vs how katrine is seen by the companions, whom generally speaking loved her. plus, the generally lovely nature of a Purple + Flirty Hawke must've been downright exhausting for the sibling.

 

* * *

  

2.

 

He doesn’t recognize his family anymore. 

The distortion starts with their father’s death. It was a slow, debilitating sickness but a sickness many would and should survive. Alas, Malcolm Hawke had lived in the Circle half his life and one winter day, he began to spew blood.

Carver and Bethany had just turned fourteen.

 

* * *

 

Watching him die was no kindness; by the end of it, he did not look like their father anymore. Pale and withered, with a breathing so scarce, every intake of breath wracked his lungs and dried his throat. Even so, he quirked his lips and told his wife not to weep. He had lived a good life with her, he said. It made his mother smile despite how empty the words felt and still do, looking back. 

The Revered Mother told them to take comfort in saying goodbye, to be thankful in easing his passing into the Maker’s embrace as she gave the final sermons to a shallow grave.

In that moment, he saw a cruelty set in Katrine’s eyes that Carver had never known before.

She knew better; he knew she knew better but the world might as well have ended that day.

He took his sister’s hand in his and held it tight until the flames blistering her skin quelled. His own palm itched and tinged pink but he bit the inside of his cheek and focused on Bethany as she lay flowers by the headstone.

 

* * *

 

Katrine laughed less. It was a quiet change, less obvious than his or Bethany’s or mother’s but he noticed. She teased and mocked and made terrible jokes but all it managed to do was irritate Carver and exhaust Bethany. Sometimes, she sounded so much like their father that Mother had to excuse herself from the room. Bethany would follow after.

Meanwhile, he wanted shove his big sister out a window but he knows she goes out to the garden at night to cry so instead he does nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

Carver found hard labor, staying close but not close enough as to find himself trading blows with Katrine day-in and day-out. Bethany took up their father’s trade in the village, tended to their crop, and took care of their mother but they both left the house even less than before. Meanwhile, Katrine began to venture far from the safety of the village, only to return after sundown with exotics from the Wilds. She gives most to Bethany to sell and keeps a few to make perfumes for mother and Beth.

He wasn’t sure what about that made him angrier: her initiative or her coming home covered in scrapes and bruises. He chooses the first.

 

* * *

 

 

They had recovered, more or less, from their father’s death. For three fleeting years, they survived if one could call it that. Then the Blight came and Bethany died.

He’s not sure who to blame for that.

It changes—the darkspawn, of course, but prodding at monsters in the dark was akin to fighting blind. Once news had reached them that the Blight was over, why bother fighting at all? Sometimes, it was Loghain and the betrayal of Ostagar. They had a chance to win and it was stolen from him, but that bitterness was nothing compared to the moment Bethany’s broken body hit the ground and his mother screamed.

And then there was Katrine. She killed the orge. She made the deal with the Witch of the Wilds. She led them to Kirkwall and found work in short order. But none of it—not a damn thing—played out into their favor.

Kirkwall ate them up and spat them out but his sister persevered and he followed her, as he always did, into the belly of the beast. He watched her back during the year they spent with Meeran and his mercenaries, wining the brigands more contracts than ever before. Carver feared for her life every step of the way, waiting for the mistake that would lead the templars to their door. Aveline, a mere recruit to the guards at the time, could only do so much. Meanwhile, Katrine went to bed with Meeran and gained a taste for trouble and profit.

From then on, she walked the fine line between the templars and mages, vagrants and criminals without batting an eye. She smiled, laughed, teased, and flirted so often and so much Carver wondered if she even missed Bethany or was she merely looking for a replacement in the litter of strays she picked up.

But Katrine persisted—She was set on being everything their father left behind.

And Carver followed her into it. He had to. _It’s what his father would’ve wanted._

 

* * *

 

He blames her more often than not—more than he should, perhaps. If he didn’t, all that would be left is him, lingering in the memory of decaying faces. He’s not sure if he can hate himself more than he does already.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes, he wonders which of them Katrine has decided to hate. Is it him? It should be him.

They come home together once the day is done. The streets are empty and whomever needed killing that night is just a cooling corpse atop a pile of others.

Mother has gone to bed already—she sleeps half the day away already, but it’s better than when she is awake. She either says nothing at all or turns bitter and holds his sister accountable for every terrible thing they’ve lived through. This is why they’re both surprised to find a stew on the fire waiting for them.

That night, they sit in silence, facing away from each other. They’re too tired to say anything, anyway.

He glances up only when he notices that she is not eating.

Suddenly, in the dim firelight, his sister doesn’t look like his sister anymore and the answer to his question is simple.

 

 


	3. remembrance.

 

* * *

 

3.

 

He feels complete once they put a sword in his hand. It’s not something he expects—he hoped for a thrill, something strong and shocking to reaffirm him in leaving his family and joining the fight. Instead, the weight of purpose is warm and meaningful and entirely unlike the blade he holds. That is, until black clotted blood dirties the sword and his new armor.

It is better than killing men, he tells himself, but darkspawn used to be men—elves and dwarves, fathers and sons. This comfort is shared amongst his brothers-in-arms but soon turns hollow after his first skirmish.

His first kill is a snarling little thing, corruption seeded so deep it’s (his, his, his) face is nothing but blotches, puss, and gnarled teeth. It meets its end swiftly, skull split in half by his virgin blade.

Instinct drives him more than training at this point but he’s stronger than most men and the fight is over before it really began.

It’s later that he realizes that they fought at the border of the Wilds. The stragglers, or so his commanding officer calls them, are pushing further north towards Ostagar. When he thinks of them going unchecked, reaching as close as Lothering, his fear fades. Every fight after that is easy. They stop being people.

When the promised brood finally arrives, he thinks only of how close to home he is.

When the army is betrayed and he and every soldier upon the battlefield watch as the tower is lit but Loghain’s forces turn away, he thinks only of how close to home the  _darkspawn_ will be.

Years later, at the Hanged Man, a veteran of the war comes up to the table he shares with his sister and her misfits. They were in the middle of a game when he stumbles over, hiccups, and looks his sister up and down. Carver is half out of his seat by the time the drunkard shifts his attention but Carver didn’t expect the slurred branding of “deserter” nor does he remember much else spare for a fog of red.

Only Aveline alone manages to pry him off the man but the damage is done.

The drunkard is nothing more than a bloody face and broken teeth—two of which he coughs up as Carver is dragged away.

Anders and Fenris begrudgingly carry the man away and Varric keeps the barkeep from throwing them out. He doesn’t stay however.

He shrugs Aveline off, who knows well enough to  _leave_  well enough alone. They’ll be never be close but Ostagar is an unspoken understanding between them.

From the corner of his eye, he sees his sister watching him. He says nothing when she gets up and follows him out.

He says nothing when she slows her steps to match his, takes his hand in hers, and guides him along the long route home.

When they get home, she makes no mention as to whose blood it is on Carver’s shirt to mother or Gamlen, and for that Carver is thankful.

 

 


	4. stalwart.

 

* * *

 

4.

 

The Circle is everything he expects and not.

There is very little to it but silence and stone. The mages walk about in monotone droves with their eyes downcast and their steps quiet. They stay pressed tightly to one another but not too tightly. Those whom unintentionally meet his wondering gaze turn away and look at the floor.

Carver swallows down the lump in his throat and redirects his attention to the Knight-Captain as his duties are explained.

* * *

His sister comes home alone and dirty. There are no riches in her hands, only unadulterated hunger in her eyes. She looks half-dead, Carver notes, but the clinking of his new armor shifts his thoughts as she takes in the sight.

Katrine goes stiff and Carver feels the blood rush to his head.

* * *

This prison—and Carver knows it’s a prison despite whatever his sister might think—is nothing like his father described. But that wasn’t surprising; the few times he ever spoke of it was cryptic at best and for good reason.

Mages of all ages are allowed to wonder the courtyard during afternoon training. Visitors come and go, and he half-expects his sister or mother—even his  _uncle_  to come waltzing in and drag him home by the ear but none do. It is unsettling as it is freeing.

* * *

It’s so bloody typical of Katrine—how he knows her so well, while she doesn’t know him at all.

The holy-flamed sword engraved into his chest-plate is matched by the spike of power thundering through her body in response to him.  _Disgust_ had set in so quick, Carver wants to laugh.

Then, their mother cries out, half-relieved, half-distraught. It’s enough to snap some sense back into his sister as Leandra clutches her by the arms. She balks, disoriented by their mother’s words before reality sets in.

Katrine looks at him once more, her expression entirely blank as their mother begs her to stop him.

In his defense, his sister always had terrible timing.

* * *

There is no laughter or games or much of anything beyond the clash of steel between him and his fellow recruits. Even the children keep their noise to a minimum throughout the day.

Carver is happy to showcase his prowess. None of the men and women at his side have ever even seen true battle before and their expectations are particularly lowered due to the fact that Carver is a hot-blooded Ferelden with a demeanor and accent to match.

He charges one man, the biggest of the bunch, and pins him to the stone tiles in a matter of seconds. He is met with awes and a hearty applause from the instructor

Laughing, breathless, Carver helps the dazed man up. As he claps him on the shoulder, he notices he is being watched by a frail girl half his height. She looks terrified.

He quickly realizes why training is scheduled around the same hour the mages are allowed their daily exercise but the Knight-Captain still takes the time to explain.

* * *

She doesn’t put up a fight. Once the situation is explained, and she’s given a moment to catch her bearings, she simply…sighs.

She pushes their mother away with a gentle hand. She looks around; their hovel of a home is in the same state she left it in. Was she even successful? By the looks of it, he thinks not and this bolsters Carver in his decision. He can provide for their family, as well. Mother may yet get her gilded home. As for his sister—

“If you think it’s best, I won’t argue.”

Suddenly, the armor feels constricting. He can’t breathe so he speaks without thinking to fight through the hand she always manages to wrap around his throat.

“See, Mother?” he hisses. “I told you she wouldn’t care.”

She barely reacts but he knows that violence in her eyes. It’s a common enough occurrence at this point, and for one horrible second he wonders if he will ever have give her up to the Order.

No— _no_.

Rather than burn him alive, she lets him go. Neither look back.

* * *

And he doesn’t look back. His mother writes often and comes to see him when she is allowed. Even Gamen sends his love but he hears and sees nothing of his sister. What he does learn comes from his mother or around town.

He never truly comes to know or care for his family’s birthright, but it is a grand and beautiful home, though now adorned with the victories of Hawke rather than Amell. For that, he is both grateful and inspired.

She gave their mother everything she wanted without clinging to the past. If anything, he has less to worry about now. Finally, he can focus solely on himself rather than the memory of one dead sister and the shadow of another.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sad


	5. brevity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original/tumblr title: "cleansing flame"

 

* * *

 

5.

 

Kirkwall is burning and his sister was the match.

No, no—that’s not quite right.

His sister might’ve brought the fire but all of this was out of her control from the start. He can see that now.

When she leaves, she takes the flames with her. In time, the rest of Thedas will burn but he remains, steadfast in a promise he never got the chance to make.

Aveline is with him and it’s almost enough to make up for a greater absence. Fenris, Merrill, and friends of Varric assist them as well as they can. It’s almost like old times, only he knows better now and he’s not nearly as tongue-tied as he used to be.

Given time and patience, he helps Aveline make sure that Kirkwall is no longer a puss-filled wound. The infection remains, however.

Tensions often flare when those his sister fought to save remember his face and the armor he used to wear. He can’t help but see Bethany amongst those survivors. He wonders what she would think of this, what she would do and say. His sister was still very much a child when she was killed and so are many of the mages who do not follow the call to action—not because they do not want to but because they are scared and alone and do not know any better.

He does right by them in lieu of his long lost twin and helps many out of the city.

Meanwhile, his once brothers and sisters-in-arms look at him with conflicted contempt. It’s understandable that he stayed his hand—they all did, after all—but a moment of doubt and a lapse of morale in the midst of a battlefield does not undo generations of prejudice. It’s an irony that he’s familiar with and chooses to make peace with it rather than fight to be right.

And so, when more than half of the remaining templar forces march out of the city gates to fight a holy war, he is not amongst them. He had not been amongst them for some weeks by then.

He refused to be stowed away like some precious jewel despite the insistence felt in his sister’s letter and that of Aveline’s words. But he is not foolish either.

The deaths of their family make up a list unequal to the causalities Kirkwall has seen this past decade, but it’s one too many names to ever recover from. And if he cannot do it for Katrine, he does it for his mother.

Carver eventually leaves the city with the help of a dwarf merchant, courtesy of a letter signed “Good luck, Junior” and a few unspoken debts.

Once they were far enough from the city’s walls, he pulled back the cloth roof of the cart only to be greeted with clear, open skies. Summer was approaching and the new season would mark six months since the massacre.

He wonders if his sister would’ve killed him, if it came down to it.

He posed what should be an impossible question—“ _Are you really going to fight your own brother?”_

The bloodied dagger in her hand said enough but Katrine was never one for silent truths, not after losing so much.

_“Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”_

He hesitated. She did not.

In the end, everything he’s achieved didn’t matter much. His sister will always reside in a place he can never touch.

A few years ago, he blinded himself with that truth, only to forget that she lived atop a tower so tall, the sunlight burns. He is not ashamed of how high he tried to climb. However, he is sorry.

What he is meant to do with his grief, he is not sure but it’s a feeling he comes to accept.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love the strained sibling relationship trope! wooho! (thanks for reading!)


End file.
